This invention relates to client-server technology. More particularly, this invention relates to a thin client-like apparatus in a cellular telephone environment.
A typical cellular telephone is an end-user device and operates as a client in many respects. It acts as a client within the cellular telephone network, and specifically it acts as a client to a network cloud having web data. And in it acts as a client to host servers in the cloud. A cellular telephone was never designed or intended to operate as a server it self. However, in connection with the present invention, software has been developed by the assignee of the present invention, Celio Corporation of Salt Lake City, Utah, to transform certain kinds of cellular telephones into special purpose servers for use with a proposed new type of client as herein more fully described. Aspects of such software are described in connection with co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. Nos. 12/042,911 and 12/042,942 filed Mar. 5, 2008.
A typical thin client device of the prior art has a processor and an operating system with a user interface, where the operating system is sufficiently enabled to run so-called thin client programs, most notably a web browser. The thin client applications typically run within such an environment. Examples include a Web-enabled word processor program, terminal programs that display content requested from a host or server and a remote access client program that shows the desktop of a remote computer.
A true thin client application is a conventional computer program that runs in the context of normal operating system with normal user interface functions. A thin client computer is merely a full function computer with limited storage or specialty input/output capabilities in communication with a much more powerful computer providing processing for a plurality of users through a thin client as the user interface. The thin client computer may run a little slower as compared with other desktop or laptop computers because all it needs to do is run the thin client application framework. Nevertheless, the thin client computer and its operating system typically has all the features of a full function operating system, even the same operating system of its server, and has the capability to allow its user to decide to run standalone programs. The typical thin client program is a loadable application suited to the thin client computer with an internal file system, system DLLs, and startup scripts that can be run locally.
Thin client programs and thin client computers systems have been found to be inadequate in respect to power consumption and security. First, because they use much of the same hardware that any conventional computer system uses, much more power is consumed than is actually necessary to carry out its tasks. If battery operated, the device has either bulky batteries, a charger or very limited permissible operational period. Moreover, since the underlying operating system is derived from or actually is a general use operating system, the device is just as susceptible to the known security issues and vulnerabilities of its base operating system.